


When We Were Young

by daigina



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Childhood, F/M, Gen, all the chapters are in the same universe and pre-skam but can be read seperately, childhod au i suppose?, this is yousana st the start but it really isn't all the way through
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11071332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daigina/pseuds/daigina
Summary: A series of one shots about Sana's childhood and life before Nissen





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is a mini series I worked on a bit and posted on Tumblr. I haven't written much more but I really like writting short baby sana fics when I'm stressed. This started as a yousana thing but I'm taking it in just a Sana place, her and her relationships with her family and friends, etc. there might be a bit more yousana but it won't take over every chapter.  
> These chapters might skip around in terms of age or time, going back and forth but are all int he same universe and all pre-S1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sana takes a fall and Yousef is kind

Sana has known Yousef for almost as long as she can remember- her brother befriended him when they were young, so young Sana was barely a toddler. And her parents and Yousef’s parents knew each other even before that, since Yousef’s parents made the move to Oslo- and that was before even her oldest brother can remember.

Yousef’s smile has always been the same, soft and endearing, like the sunshine filtering through clouds in the spring.

And when they were young, Sana would play with her brother and his friends- or she would try to. Left to their own devices by the adults during community gatherings or holiday celebrations, Sana would trail after Yousef, Adam and whoever else was following Elias’s lead. Elias was always in the lead.

He would play the part of the annoyed older sibling perfectly, telling Sana to find her own friends and sticking his tongue out at her.

Once, during the first Eid Sana can remember, she took a nasty fall. The celebrations were winding down, and the kids had all slipped outside to run up and down the street- Sana was doing her best to keep up with Elias and his friends, but her foot caught on her long pants and she screamed, flung out her tiny hands to catch her fall, scraping them up badly.

They all turned to look, and soon she had a group of boys standing over her, mixed faces of concern and mirth. Elias told her it served her right, he told her so, and that she should have left them alone in the first place. Her soft whimpers turned to indignant tears, angry and upset.

Some of his friends gave him a soft elbow, whispered “hey, she’s hurt.” But they didn’t do much more, young boys that they were, afraid to argue with the bold leader Elias was. Except for Yousef.

He knelt down and gently took her hands in his, inspecting the damage. Some skin had torn, but there wasn’t much blood, hardly any at all. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “This is nothing at all! We’ll get your mamma.”

And he smiled at her, wide and soft and wiry, and Sana didn’t want to cry anymore.

As her mamma picked her up and brought her back inside, she waved goodbye to the boys from over her mother’s shoulder. But she only looked at Yousef.

He was kind, and sweet, and brave, but quiet- and little Sana wanted to be his friend. She looked up to him, she wanted to be him, with his quiet kind of confidence, his open smile that felt warm like the sun.

Sana, quiet in an awkward way, who always stared too hard and didn’t smile enough, wanted to feel that warmth for the longest time- wanted to be the one to radiate it, just like him.

But she knew it wasn’t possible for her, all furrowed brows and heated anger that Sana was as a child. And as the years passed, and Sana stopped trailing after Elias’s gang, she knew if she couldn’t be the sun, she could be a shadow. Dark, quiet, and cool. She wore darker clothes, gave harsher looks, stuck to studying rather than socializing.

But the thing about shadows is- they get devoured by the light of the sun, no matter how dark they are.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sana wears a cool new hijab and Elias is a butt

Her first hijab was purple. Not a soft lilac or a deep royal purple- but bright, almost neon, purple.

Sana regretted still letting her mamma shop for her. 

Because wearing the hijab was something special and personal, it connected her to Allah in ways that her eleven year old heart could only hope to understand down the road-

But it was. Purple. And Sana went one day before she was digging in her mamma’s boxes of scarves- she had hundreds, probably, of all colors and patterns. Red or pink or white with orange stripes, as Sana pulled out each scarf and inspected it, it would wind up on the growing pile behind her just as quickly. They were all wrong, wrong, and wrong. 

It took almost ten minutes before she found the perfect scarf. She had yanked back a red and blue patterned scarf and didn’t even have time to think about why it was ugly before it caught her eye. Inky black, soft cotton material with tassels on the end. She shoved all the rest back in the box and returned it to her mother’s closet before trying it on. 

It was too big, of course. Sana was still very young, and even for her age she was short- and this was a scarf for an adult- it swam on her, draping around her neck and past her shoulders, and almost engulfing her. But she loved it. It contrasted with her face and her eyes and was so soft- and _not_ bright purple.

The next day, she pinned it strategically in place- Sana was still getting used to not pricking her finger, and there were a few slip ups, but she had to get it _perfect_. And her outfit was planned around it too- long black skirt, her beat up black converse, and her favorite Linkin Park t-shirt, with a long sleeved undershirt. Looking in the mirror, little Sana was convinced she looked cool. Maybe even cooler than her cousin from Trondheim, who visited every summer and wore _combat boots._

It was a Saturday, and Sana was going to go to the near-by park to practice shooting after a quick breakfast- so she grabbed her backpack and her basketball and headed downstairs. After she set her stuff down by the door and started towards the kitchen, she heard her brother’s laugh, loud and brash, mingled with the protests of another. 

She peeked around the living room door to see Elias and Yousef, deep in a round of video games. Sana liked watching her brother play games- sometimes she would join in, but Elias didn’t invite her often. She didn’t get worked up like her brother and his friends, she was quieter, concentrated, furrowed brows and frustrated huffs- and Elias thought that was boring. Elias was a dirty player, anyway. 

“You can’t _do that_ ,” Yousef protested as Elias lightly elbowed his controller. 

“Don’t know what you mean,” replied Elias, eyes glued to the TV. As the match came to an end, her brother stood triumphantly, with a shout of “in your _face!_ ” and finally noticed Sana, who had moved to watch a few feet behind them. 

And he burst out laughing. Yousef turned to look as Elias asked, “what are you _wearing?_ ” as though he were almost in tears at the hilarity of it all. 

Sana felt her face heat up. “ _Clothes,_ ” she spat back through pursed lips. Did she really look so stupid?

“It’s not called a head blanket, Sana,” Elias laughed and turned around to fist bump Yousef, but he had turned away, already clearing up the controllers and putting games away. He shrugged it off. “Whatever, I’m going to go get my camera so Yousef can film me trying to shove twenty marshmallows in my mouth. Don’t suck all his blood out while I’m gone, Elvira.” 

Sana may have elbowed him as he passed, only feeling a little better at hearing his hushed “ _ow!_ ” 

Once he was gone, Yousef seemed to be fiddling with the video games more than putting them away, glancing at Sana every so often with raised eyebrows. And even though Sana didn’t care for the opinion of Elias or his friends, every time his eyes went to her, she felt the anxiety of judgement swell in her chest and. And she thought Yousef was nice. She had looked up to him in a way since she was young, he was so kind to her and… and knowing he was sitting there, glancing at her and probably agreeing with what her brother had said made her feel almost betrayed. 

She should have just stuck with the stupid purple hijab that was her size. 

She turned sharply on her heel and marched to the kitchen, her face growing hot. And the thing about Sana was that when she got angry- really angry- sometimes she cried. And she couldn’t help it, her stupid brother laughing at her like that, and his stupid friend just staring like that, she wanted to elbow them both in the face. Her face heated up and her eyes swelled with angry tears and _she had better not cry, don’t be a big baby about this._

She went straight for the fridge once she reached the kitchen, grabbed a couple apples out of the fridge and slammed it shut. _So what if she looked dumb, Elias’s stupid opinion didn’t stupid matter or his stupid friend-_

“Hey,” came a voice from behind Sana, spun around, only to find Yousef there. 

“What,” Sana bit out, still refusing to let her tears fall. She thought of all the things she could say to him, ask him if he was going to call her names, too, or why him and her brother were so _stupid_ \- when Yousef opened his mouth.

“Don’t listen to Elias,” he said, looking from the floor, to Sana, back to the floor. 

She stared at him. 

After a beat, he said, “He shouldn’t have said that stuff. It’s not true, like… you look good, so. Sorry... and stuff.”

“Okay,” she deadpanned, trying to keep her face straight. 

He looked awkward, like he didn’t want to be there- and maybe he was about to leave, when something seemed to strike him. “Next time he says anything about your clothes you should ask why he’s talking, when he looks like he robbed a Nike apparel store in the dark.” 

He laughed, harder than he probably should have for such a weak insult- but he wasn’t wrong. And his smile was warm and bright, like sunshine- no matter how dark Sana’s mood had been, she didn’t think she could resist that kind of light.

So Sana laughed with him, and the tears she had held back before fell, just a little while she let her guard down in this moment, and she swiped at her face with her long sleeves. 

“Okay,” she smirked, “I’ll be sure to let him know. Cool.”

“Cool,” Yousef echoed. And she brushed past him, nodding a farewell as she slipped down the hall, grabbing her things on the way out. 

Yeah, cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last yousana chapter for a hot minute. next ones about jamilla, I think, because man if that clip with her not inspire me. She's a goddess and I want an entire show about her


End file.
